with such dreadful incisiveness that their effect on Elsa was almost that of physical force. She began to cower and retreat, looking up at Maxene with a dull uncomprehending stare. The latter followed her step for step, as Elsa backed away on legs that were giving way under her. Now Maxene towered over Elsa like an enraged Amazon, her face cruel and scornful.

"I should have seen through you earlier!" Maxene's voice was raucous with contempt. "I thought you were just senile and stupid. Why you hideous old bag! Do you think I give a damn about you? I had a run-in with a queer once before, a young one, and there wasn't much left of her face after I got through with it. Now get this straight, you . . . you. you...! I couldn't use you stuffed!" Elsa was slumped against a wall, eyes dazed, her fingers pulling at her grey, frowsy hair.

•

"Oh, please, Miss Maxene, don't talk to me like that, please," she whimpered imploringly. "I didn't. . . didn't know what I was doing. I you're the first beautiful girl who was ever kind to me. I didn't. . . mean anything. . . bad. . . . I . . .

Maxene bent deliberately and spat in Elsa's face. "Now take off, you hear? One more false move out of you and you'll be sorry the rest of your life. If we were someplace else, I'd take it out on you now." Elsa started for the door, a small bent figure with hands before her face. Maxene resumed her seat at the dressing table, her face still white with fury, and remained motionless until she heard the door close,

Elsa did not return to work that afternoon. Once free of the cafeteria, she fled from the building and back to her apartment. She telephoned her employer that she was overcome by the heat, and would not return until morning.

The next few days passed over Elsa like a horrid nightmare. At work she fell back into her former habits, and appeared to have reverted to her distant, efficient self. Her employers noted an absent-mindedness, and a fixedness in her expression, but they laid it to an indisposition. In her occasional encounters with Maxene, now often seen with male companions, Elsa passed by with averted eyes. But at home her pets and her apartment fell into neglect while she filled her time with silent, morbid introspection. With a mind badly equipped for such a pastime, she got no further than the excruciating pangs of unrequited love, mixed with deepening self-accusation over the direction in which her affections had so suddenly blossomed. She mulled over her otherwise empty and featureless past. In a dim, wordless way, she slowly convinced herself that her womanhood, hitherto merely fruitless, had almost overnight turned evil, vicious. And the more she condemned her badness, the more her imagination became flooded with sensual fantasies of Maxene Maxene's hair against her face, Maxene's body in her arms. As she indulged these fantasies, their hidden lusts to her new and overpowering began marching forth nakedly into the full view of her mind. She would fall upon her bed overcome by desire, and when this had passed she would be dissolved for hours in torments of shame.

Early one morning after a night of sleepless torture she got up and dressed and went out on the street, her mind almost on the verge of madness. A few blocks away the spires of a cathedral soared above the neighboring rooftops. She could not remember having been inside this or any church, but now some instinct impelled her in the direction of the cathedral. Perhaps, she thought, she would find something there to still the unspeakable tumult within. As she approached she saw others entering the imposing portals, and half-timidly she followed them, Early services were beginning, Elsa remained standing far in the rear, her eyes roving curiously over the unfamiliar sights. Morning sunlight fired the multicolored windows with sparkling jewelled hues. The vaulted ceiling far overhead was in semi-darkness. Up and far ahead through a majestic perspective of aisles and pillars gleamed the sanctuary and altar, a distant, immaculate vision of gold and white. At its center glistened the cross, flanked by great polished candelabra with tall slender tapers, each with its

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